On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Board announced that voters who had already cast absentee ballots for the general election must present valid government-issued identification for those ballots to be counted.

The appeal by plaintiffs challenging Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law asks that the full U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals hear their appeal. The requirement, stalled by court challenges since 2012, was revived by a three-member panel of the court Friday.

“The risk of disenfranchisement from imposing such a last-minute disruption far outweighs the non-existent harm to the state of maintaining the status quo and not requiring photo ID for one more election,” according to the plaintiffs, who include voters who lack the proper identification along with advocacy groups including LULAC, the Advancement Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

The plaintiffs argued that courts including the U.S. Supreme Court “uniformly caution against such eleventh-hour changes to the election laws, even where those courts have approved such changes for future elections.”

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Wisconsin’s top elections official said Tuesday that hundreds of voters who have already cast absentee ballots for the Nov. 4 election must show or send in a photocopy of acceptable photo identification to their local municipal clerk’s office for those ballots to be counted.

Also Tuesday, plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenged the voter ID requirement said they plan to appeal the ruling by three judges on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to the full court. That ruling on Friday reinstated the voter ID requirement that had been stalled since 2012 by court challenges.

“The panel’s decision allowing this law to take effect this close to the election is a recipe for disaster,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “It will create chaos in election administration, resulting in voter confusion and disenfranchisement. The voters of Wisconsin deserve a chance to cast their ballots free of these obstacles.”

Kevin Kennedy, director of the state Government Accountability Board, urged absentee voters to send copies or bring in a valid photo identification such as a driver’s license to their local clerks as soon as possible to ensure their ballots would be counted. IDs can be presented in person or copies can be emailed, faxed or mailed.

Kennedy said more than 11,000 absentee ballot requests had been received statewide as of Friday. He said he didn’t know how many had been returned by voters to clerks’ offices but estimated it in the hundreds.

Clerks are being instructed to use “extraordinary measures,” he said, to contact each absentee voter in writing to make sure they understand the new requirement. Overseas and military voters and those who live in a nursing home or other such facility are not required to show a photo ID to vote, he said.

Kennedy also said his agency and other state departments, including the Department of Health Services and the Division of Motor Vehicles, were working to ensure that voters who lacked proper identification would be able to obtain it before the election. The Wisconsin Supreme Court also upheld the photo ID requirement but ordered the state to make identification available for free to those who need it.

The court told the state that it could not require voters to pay for a birth certificate or other supporting documentation. If such proof is not available, the prospective voter can provide an explanation of why it’s not available, the court ordered, along with “whatever documentation is available which states the person’s name and date of birth.” It will then be up to the DMV to determine if the verification is sufficient.

But Madison resident Jon Senchyne demonstrated the complexity of obtaining the required identification so close to the election. Senchyne said he doesn’t have a driver’s license, his passport has expired and his New York birth certificate was “severely damaged” the last time he applied for a passport.

Senchyne, who has voted without incident three times since moving to Wisconsin in 2012, said he was told by someone at the accountability board that it could take eight weeks for the DMV to verify his birth information.

“There are only seven weeks left until Election Day,” he said. “I’m going to try to get the ID with the documents I have, but if it takes the DMV eight weeks to verify my citizenship ... the clock will run out before I can vote this November.”

On its voter ID website, the DMV states that the agency “will attempt to process applications in less than seven business days, but completion time may be longer depending upon the responsiveness of the entities being contacted for verification.”

Kennedy acknowledged that most university- or college-issued IDs also do not qualify, but he said his agency is working with higher-education officials to offer identification cards that do comply. He added that many students already have an acceptable identification, such as a driver’s license.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to file a motion Tuesday with the 7th Circuit in Chicago in order to “protect the voting rights of Wisconsin citizens.”

“With just seven weeks before Election Day, this last-minute change ... stands to disenfranchise the more than 300,000 registered Wisconsin voters — disproportionately voters of color — who lack the required form of identification,” ACLU-Wisconsin spokeswoman Molly Collins said.

The court rarely grants such requests, but the ACLU and the Advancement Project vowed to “pursue all legal avenues” to stop the law.

GOP lawmakers passed a law in 2011 requiring people to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls. Because of legal challenges, the requirement had not been enforced since the February 2012 primary.

The Advancement Project and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit challenging the mandate in 2011. A federal judge in Milwaukee found the law unconstitutional this spring, but Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has asked the 7th Circuit to overturn that decision.

A three-judge 7th Circuit panel — all appointed by former Republican presidents — ruled Friday that the state could implement the law while it considers the merits of the case.

Kennedy acknowledged Tuesday that implementing the requirement less than 50 days before the election “will not be easy, but the GAB and Wisconsin clerks are up to the challenge.”

He noted that his agency developed training and public information materials back in 2012 when the requirement briefly was in place. He said those would be “repurposed” for the election. “We weren’t unprepared for this,” he said.

Asked at a news conference if the requirement to present a government-issued photo ID would dampen turnout, Kennedy said it could have the opposite effect by creating a “more energized and engaged” electorate.

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jeannedauray@gmail.com (Dee J. Hall | Wisconsin State Journal)WisconsinSun, 21 Sep 2014 20:40:46 +0000Changes in America's Dairyland foul the waters of Green Bayhttp://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3797-changes-in-americas-dairyland-foul-the-waters-of-green-bay
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3797-changes-in-americas-dairyland-foul-the-waters-of-green-bayManure is a potent fertilizer that does wonders for the crops that feed the cows that give the milk that makes Wisconsin America's Dairyland.

It's also making a mess of its waters.

While Green Bay holds a mere 1.4% of Lake Michigan's water, it receives one-third of the lake's nutrient load — due largely to the farm fields that drip phosphorus-rich manure into the streams, creeks and rivers that flow toward the bay.

Samples taken in many of those waterways over the past decade show average summer phosphorus levels twice as high — and sometimes 4 times as high — as what scientists say is acceptable.

Phosphorus at these levels is the trigger for late-summer algae blooms that smother beaches and, when they die and decompose, burn up so much oxygen that the waters of Green Bay are now plagued with chronic "dead zones" — vast stretches in which almost nothing can live.

Nutrient levels are only one factor in the Green Bay dead zone equation. Weather also plays a big role. Most phosphorus that makes its way into the bay from farm fields is unleashed in spring, when there is not ample crop cover to absorb and anchor the manure that farmers have spread as a cheap source of fertilizer. Big spring rains in the fields can lead to big summer algae blooms in the bay.

Higher temperatures are another factor. They affect the size and severity of dead zones, both by increasing algae growth and by lengthening the number of days each summer that water separates into a warm upper zone and a frigid lower zone. The longer the water stays separated, the longer the lower layer must go without being replenished with atmospheric oxygen, and the more likely fish-choking dead zones are to emerge.

Wind patterns also play a role. If it's calm for a prolonged period in mid- and late-summer, that provides petri dish conditions to incubate the oxygen-burning algae blooms.

Experts say all of these elements appear to be coming together more often in recent years.

"The conditions out there are more favorable to have higher algae blooms," explains Dale Robertson, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. "That's partially due to warmer temperatures. It's partially due to wind loads. It's partially due to a lot of things."

Changing climate factors aside, underlying all the trouble is the undeniable fact that Green Bay is being burdened with more manure than it can handle, and this is the one piece of the dead zone equation that humans could start to fix tomorrow.

A pollution pie chart

In 2002, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources formally declared the lower portion of Green Bay and the heavily industrialized Fox River that flows into it as "impaired" under the Clean Water Act.

The impairment designation required government regulators to craft a plan to reduce flows of the offending pollutants — in this case phosphorus and the dirt known in regulatory speak as "total suspended solids" — into the lower Fox River. The primary source for both pollutants is erosion from farmlands.

It took a decade, but state and federal regulators came out with that plan in 2012. It is essentially a fertilizer diet designed to restore some semblance of ecological balance to the bay and the lower Fox River, defined as the 39-mile stretch between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay.

The hope is that this will not only alleviate dead zones but could someday lead to the re-opening of swimming beaches within a reasonable drive — or even bike ride — from downtown Green Bay, something that hasn't been available to area residents for decades.

This is not an unreasonable goal for a city of 105,000. Kids in the Bronx can swim at neighborhood beaches.

The plan demands a lot of money from a lot of phosphorus-discharging industries and cities — but not agriculture, even though dairy farming is, by far, the largest single source of the watershed's phosphorus problem.

Contaminants that run off farm fields are designated by regulators as "non-point" pollution, which Congress essentially exempted from provisions of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

Congress instead went after pipe-owning or "point source" polluters. As a result, cities and industries along the lower Fox River have already spent more than $250 million on pollution controls in recent decades that have greatly reduced discharges of phosphorus and other pollutants. Now, because of the impaired waters listing, these point source polluters are facing a new wave of expensive pollution control upgrades that may do little to keep Green Bay's fish from suffocating in their own water.

The problem is the law — the law of diminishing returns.

Consider the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District.

The district, now known as NEW Water, serves about 220,000 toilet flushers in Brown County and sends about 31,600 pounds of phosphorus into the lower Fox River each year, which is less than 6% of the watershed's overall phosphorus load. But to meet the government's new phosphorus target, environmental regulators have told the district it must reduce its annual load by 9,300 pounds.

Sewerage district officials estimate that building treatment systems able to pull those pounds annually from their waste stream will cost ratepayers between $223 million and $394 million. That would amount to as much as $42,000 per pound to remove a product that in its commercial fertilizer form costs farmers somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 or $2 per pound.

It's a similar story up and down the lower Fox River.

"We could spend $1 billion, and if we're not wise, we could see no water quality improvement," warns Michael Finney, a former DNR employee who now works with the Oneida tribe to develop sustainable farming on tribal croplands in the Fox River basin southwest of Green Bay.

The conundrum is perfectly illustrated with a pie chart.

Agriculture is responsible for about 46% of the phosphorus dumped annually into the lower Fox River and Green Bay — more than 250,000 pounds. Pipe-owning sewage treatment plants and industries are responsible for 16% and 21% of the annual phosphorus load, respectively. Most of the remaining comes from storm-water runoff from cities and suburbs lining the lower Fox River.

Yet the Clean Water Act doesn't have the teeth to chew on the biggest piece of this pollution pie.

"The key word will be 'voluntary,' when it comes to non-point" sources, says Bradley Holtz, agricultural runoff management specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Brown stuff in Brown County

Bill Hafs, a former county conservationist for the Brown County Land and Water Conservation Department, says a general rule for dairy farming is that each cow needs somewhere between two and three acres of land to live upon.

It's not a precise figure because climate and soil types vary, but such a patch of land — about the size of three football fields — is basically what is needed to generate enough food to feed a cow and absorb the manure it produces.

Brown County, in the heart of the lower Fox River watershed, is home to some 105,000 cows squeezed onto an ever-shrinking number of agricultural acres. Crop acreage in the suburbanizing county dropped from nearly 230,000 in the 1970s to less than 165,000 today, an average of 1.54 agricultural acres per cow.

Gordon Stevenson, former chief of runoff management for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, notes that each cow can produce 18 times the amount of fecal waste as a human, when it comes to that material's ability to degrade a water body. This means that Brown County cows alone generate about as much waste as a city of 2 million, roughly the size of Houston.

But none of this cow waste goes through sewage treatment plants.

Instead, much of it is liquified and spread across farm fields to fertilize crops — the cheapest and easiest way to unburden farmers of their lagoons filled with dung.

The problem of shrinking agricultural acres is compounded by the way the land that is left is farmed.

Alfalfa hay is considered an environmentally friendly crop because it acts as an anchor to prevent manure and soil from washing downstream. But the amount of hay production in Brown County has dropped from 86,000 acres in the 1960s to 33,600 in the past decade, according to figures provided by Hafs. At the same time, he notes, the amount of acreage for growing corn — a highly erosive crop — has gone from 49,000 acres in the 1970s to 67,700 acres in recent years.

Hafs, who now works for the Green Bay sewerage district, says the problem comes down to simple math — too much manure, and not enough grass-covered land to spread it upon.

"It's an increase in livestock on less acres of land, and less land in alfalfa," Hafs says. "It's that simple."

The trend is not toward fewer cows.

The lower Fox River is home to a swelling number of factory farms — a designation for dairies with the equivalent of at least 1,000 "animal units," a formula for calculating the number of cows in a way that compensates for the smaller impact of calves. These industrial milk plants are referred to by environmental regulators as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.

The 2012 phosphorus reduction plan required by the Clean Water Act reported there were 15 such operations in the lower Fox River basin. But this is a moving target.

DNR data provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July shows the number of CAFOS operating at least partially in the lower Fox River basin has since grown to 25. Those operations alone are home to 69,392 animal units — enough cows to excrete more waste than all the residents of Milwaukee County.

These giant farms fall to some degree under the purview of the Clean Water Act. The sections of the operations where the cows are concentrated — places like barns — are regulated for pollution discharges.

But once manure is sucked up and pumped out onto croplands, it bureaucratically transforms into largely unregulated "non-point" pollution.

Under the Clean Water Act, lands that receive this manure are required to have nutrient management plans. The stated goal of these plans — which prescribe manure applications based on things like soil composition, field slopes and type of crops — is to "limit or reduce the discharge of nutrients to waters of the state for the purpose of complying with state water quality standards."

Operators of smaller farms, meanwhile, are encouraged to implement nutrient management plans and safely spread manure, but they are required to do so only if they receive government grants that cover at least a portion of the cost.

Brown County reports that 72% of its agricultural acreage is subject to nutrient management plans. Yet these plans are clearly not doing the job they are supposed to do, given the tremendous loads of phosphorus entering the lower Fox River and Green Bay.

"The standard line you hear is: There is no problem as long as we have nutrient management plans, the water will be protected," says Stevenson, the former DNR regulator, who now sits on the board of Midwest Environmental Advocates.

Stevenson says the plans may look good on paper, but they are doing a miserable job in protecting the public's resources.

"No one is looking at the gross volume that the landscape is seeing," he says. "The landscape is telling us itself what's going on."

So are the fish beaching themselves in Green Bay.

Smarter farming

Leery of spending hundreds of millions more on wastewater treatment upgrades that will remove a toothpick-thin wedge from the lower Fox River's phosphorus pie chart, the Green Bay sewerage district has struck a deal with state regulators. They want to explore whether ratepayer dollars would be better spent working with farmers to reduce their massive discharges than paying for expensive sewerage district upgrades.

"We're interested in cleaning up the water at the lowest price per pound of phosphorus," says the sewerage district's Hafs. "I think it will be cheaper for us to work with agriculture than to build new treatment plants."

State regulators have given the district four years to create what is essentially an outdoor laboratory on farm fields west of the city of Green Bay. The idea is to see just how much phosphorus can be removed if strict controls are used on the farmlands in the Silver Creek drainage owned by the Oneida.

The idea is to employ things like erosion-reducing crops, wetland restorations andbuffer zones along drainages and streams to filter out manure before it washes downhill toward the bay.

The target in the DNR plan is to get the average summer phosphorus levels in the creeks that feed the Fox River down to 0.075 milligrams per liter, a dramatic reduction. Some of the creeks' average summer levels have topped four times that amount.

In a conference room at the Green Bay sewerage district's headquarters, just down the river from a Georgia Pacific paper mill that is facing stiff state-mandated phosphorus reductions, Hafs scribbles with colored markers on a white grease board to show what is going to happen.

He draws a square field overlaid on top of the natural undulations that carry off water in big rains. These channels rimming farm fields are often tilled and planted with crops instead of respected as intermittent streams that require buffer zones to keep sediment and phosphorus on the farm.

He scribbles a big "NO" across that square with a red marker. Then he sketches how a farm field can be planted within those natural channels with vegetation buffers in a manner that keeps crop soil and its contaminants from draining downstream. That gets a big "YES."

One farm is as square as a postage stamp. One has the borders of a suspicious mole. One is built to maximize crop output. One is designed to coax crops from the soil, to the extent that nearby waters are protected.

This will cost money.

It will also mean extra farm work due to planting, tending and harvesting irregularly shaped fields that may begin to look more like golf courses (responsible for 0.3% of the watershed's phosphorus load) than checkerboards. More acreage also will be converted to soil-stabilizing crops like alfalfa, which doesn't yield as much feed per acre as corn.

None of these strategies is new to anyone familiar with soil conservation practices developed decades ago after the horrors of the Dust Bowl.

The twistis that Hafs wants to demonstrate what can be done when all these strategies are employed to the maximum extent possible within a single watershed. Unlike traditional erosion control programs, this one has a specific goal for the volume of phosphorus and sediment leaving Silver Creek — much like pollution monitored and controlled at the end of a "point source" pipe.

Hafs says if the sewerage district can reach that goal of 0.075 milligrams of phosphorus per liter, "there is your cookbook for every other watershed."

The idea then would be to use sewerage district dollars to pay farmers along the other creeks feeding Green Bay to use similar practices.

Hafs won't talk about how much money the district would be willing to use to subsidize changes in farming operations. But it will be cheaper for ratepayers so long as it's less than the hundreds of millions of dollars the district says it will have to pay for treatment plant upgrades.

The experiment has Tracy Valenta, a former sewerage district employee who did groundbreaking researchon the Green Bay dead zones, happy that the plan might lead to lower levels of cow excrement tumbling into the bay.

But she also wonders why she and her neighbors should have to pay for it.

"I flush my toilet in the city of Green Bay and my rates are going to go up, and it's to subsidize agriculture," she says. "Why is the sewerage district being held responsible for someone else's waste?"

It's the way the Clean Water Act works — or doesn't work. And not just in Green Bay.

A Government Accountability Office report last December noted that the spectacular strides made after the act's passage more than four decades ago have turned into stutter steps and stumbles backward. It reported that more than half of the nation's lakes and rivers assessed in a 50-state survey still don't meet minimum water quality standards.

"More than 40 years after Congress passed the Clean Water Act...many of the nation's waters are still impaired, and the goals of the Act are not being met," the report said. "Without changes to the Act's approach to nonpoint source pollution, the Act's goals are likely to remain unfulfilled."

Nowhere is this national failure more acute than in the cow-muddied waters of lower Green Bay and in the western basin of Lake Erie, where a phosphorus-fueled toxic algae bloom in August knocked out the public water supply for a half-million people. The National Guard had to be called in to deliver water by the truckload.

Sticky territory

Regardless of what happens with the Oneida experiment, it is going to be very difficult for the dairy industry of Northeastern Wisconsin to smart-farm its way out of this trouble. The new target phosphorus reductions, crafted for each watershed feeding the lower Fox River, are staggeringly steep.

For example, the goal for one small river that feeds the lower Fox River is to reduce its agricultural load of phosphorus from more than 38,000 pounds per year to just over 6,000 pounds — a decrease of 83%.

Farms draining into this little river alone are responsible for discharging more phosphorus waste than the 220,000 people served by the Green Bay Sewerage District. Slashing some 32,000 pounds of phosphorus from its waste stream won't happen without a profound change in the number of cows allowed in the watershed, or at least in how their manure is managed.

Yet some farmers responsible for generating much of this pollution remain largely unaware of the new plan's details.

"You could probably enlighten me more than I could enlighten you," Mark Wiese says when asked how he expected to meet these requirements at his 8,000-animal unit dairy.

This is sticky territory. The idea of a dairy cow chewing its way through a green pasture is as much a part of Wisconsin's cultural fabric as the freshwater that defines the state's borders.

But how many fields filled with cows do you see these days on the farms of eastern Wisconsin? You can smell the cows, but you rarely see them. Pastures dappled with cow pies are being replaced with barns the size of airport hangars and man-made manure ponds sloshing with millions of gallons of liquid waste.

Val Klump, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes WATER Institute, says it may be time to treat agriculture as the big, heavy industry ithas become.

He looks at the ongoing $1 billion PCB cleanup funded by the paper companies that polluted the Fox River and lower Green Bay as an example of how industries can be held accountable for cleaning up the messes they make.

"Nutrients and sediments have a bigger impact on water quality in the bay than PCBs ever did," he says. "And look at how much we're spending on the PCBs."

State agriculture officials appear headed in the opposite direction, however. They have launched a campaign to boostmilk production in the state from 27.5 billion pounds annually to 30 billion pounds by the year 2020.

"It is vital that all players in the dairy industry and state government are laser-focused on reaching the initiative's goal," Bill Bruins, president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said when the campaign was announced two years ago.

Something is going to have to give, and not just in Wisconsin.

The Lake Erie debacle has emerged as the Great Lakes' highest profile water pollution problem since Cleveland's Cuyahoga River burned in 1969.

And now agriculture may be about to feel a heat equal to those flames.

"We're where we were at in 1972 with point-source pollution, when people were saying, 'What do you mean, paper mills have to do something? That's going to destroy their businesses!'" says Finney, who works for the Oneida tribe.

But the paper industry didn't die, despite better pollution controls, because modern society still needs paper.

Trying to make sense of all the different court rulings in Wisconsin on their partisan Photo ID voting laws? We'll try to unpack that for you.

The short version: Two different state trial courts found the GOP's Photo ID restriction on voting to be a violation of the state constitution's right to vote. A federal trial court (aka U.S. District Court) similarly found the law to be a violation of various parts of the U.S. Constitution.

The partisan WI state Supreme Court recently overturned the decisions in the two state cases --- literally re-writing the law as they did so (yes, actually legislating from the bench on behalf of Republicans). Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker, whom recent polls suggest is in a virtual dead heat with his Democratic challenger Mary Burke, then asked the federal appellate court to immediately overturn the U.S. District Court's injunction, which still blocks implementation of Wisconsin's Photo ID law.

Last week, the federal appellate court turned down Walker's request that it immediately overturn the federal injunction. Wisconsin election officials are, at present, still barred from enforcing the controversial law in the Badger State.

Specifically, last week, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal issued an order [PDF] in which it refused an emergency stay of the federal court decision permanently enjoining Wisconsin's partisan Photo ID law prior to oral arguments on the merits of the state's federal appeal. Yes, the state not only appealed the adverse ruling in the two state cases (successfully), but they also appealed the initial federal court decision as well.

The permanent injunction in federal court was issued earlier this year by U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman who, in a landmark 90-page decision and order [PDF] following a full trial, found that the Republican-enacted Photo ID law violated the U.S. Constitution and that it was "absolutely clear" that it "will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes."

Last month, following the issuance of the two decisions by the sharply divided and extraordinarily partisan Wisconsin Supreme Court which lifted the state court injunctions in two different state cases --- Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP vs. Walker [PDF] and League of Women Voters of Wisconsin v. Walker [PDF] --- Walker filed his Expedited Motion for a Stay Pending Appeal of the Permanent Injunction [PDF] in the federal appellate court.

In it's ruling last week, the 7th Circuit upheld the portion of the Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions which changed the law by directing the state's Department of Motor Vehicles to issue Photo ID cards sans requiring documents, such as birth certificates, for which the elector had previously been required to pay a fee to a government agency. That issue, however, is only one of the reasons why U.S. District Court Judge Adelman initially found the polling place Photo ID law constitutionally infirm. While we will have to await a final decision --- and even that decision will, no doubt, make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court eventually --- the current ruling issued last week suggests that the 7th Circuit did not see that one single issue as sufficient to immediately stay Judge Adelman's permanent injunction in federal court.

The 7th Circuit will hear oral arguments on September 12 --- less than two months prior to the November General Election. It is likely the 7th Circuit will expedite its decision. Stay tuned!

]]>amiller6210@gmail.com (Ernest A. Canning | The Brad Blog)WisconsinThu, 28 Aug 2014 12:58:00 +0000Wisconsin loses $206 million by not fully expanding BadgerCarehttp://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3749-wisconsin-loses-206-million-by-not-fully-expanding-badgercare
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3749-wisconsin-loses-206-million-by-not-fully-expanding-badgercareWisconsin taxpayers would have saved $206 million over two years — 73% more than previously estimated — if officials had fully expanded its main health care program for the poor under the federal Affordable Care Act, a new nonpartisan report shows.

If officials decide to change course and expand the program in the next state budget, state taxpayers would save another $261 million to $315 million through June 2017, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The bureau serves the Legislature and is widely respected by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

In all, the state could have saved more than $500 million over 31/2 years, the report shows. That would have allowed Gov. Scott Walker and legislators to put more money toward schools or roads or cut taxes more deeply than they did over the last year.

In addition to saving state funds, the full expansion would have served an estimated 87,000 more adults each month under BadgerCare Plus, according to the fiscal bureau.

The program provides better coverage for people with low incomes — and at a lower cost — than the subsidized health plans sold on the federal marketplaces set up under the Affordable Care Act.

Burke said the new numbers highlight the need to expand BadgerCare, while Walker said he would not do so because he didn't believe the federal government would follow through with funding promises that are written into law.

The potential savings are available because of an Obamacare provision that requires the federal government to pick up the full cost of people newly coming into Medicaid programs like BadgerCare who earn up to 133% of the federal poverty level.

Federal aid available

Having the federal government pay the full cost of those BadgerCare recipients provides a big break for the state. Normally, BadgerCare costs are shared, with the federal government paying about 60% and the state paying about 40%.

Under a full expansion, the amount the federal government would pay for the new enrollees would gradually decline from 100% now to 90% in 2020 and beyond. While the rate would go down, it would still be far above the 60% the federal government pays for other BadgerCare enrollees, including those gaining coverage under Walker's plan.

Last year, Walker and Republicans who control the Legislature rejected fully expanding BadgerCare and instead opted for a partial expansion. Under Walker's plan, about 63,000 people were dropped from BadgerCare, while roughly 97,500 were added to it. That's a net increase of about 34,500 people.

Those dropped from the program were members of families above the federal poverty designation, and they were to sign up for subsidized private health care through the insurance marketplaces set up under Obamacare. Those added were adults living in poverty who don't have dependent children.

In a statement, Burke said Walker was fiscally reckless for not making BadgerCare more widely available considering the state would save money by doing so.

"In the business world, CEOs get fired for decisions like that," her statement said. "As governor, I'm going to put common sense before politics. Governor Walker's politics-first approach has left Wisconsin taxpayers paying the price."

But in comments to reporters Friday in Platteville, Walker said he was undeterred by the report and sticking by his BadgerCare plan. He said he didn't believe the federal government would provide the funding it has promised.

"We haven't exposed our taxpayers to something I think eventually is going to happen and that we've started to see in other states," he said. "And that is the promises they talk about under the Affordable Care Act, under Obamacare, not coming through. ... We believe confidently going forward this federal government is likely to renege from its promises on Medicaid to the states. And we won't be exposed to that.

"So they can talk about hypotheticals. We believe in the end the track record of the federal government has been to pull away from their commitments to the states."

Democrats counter that the federal government's commitment is anything but hypothetical. Congress and the president would have to reach an agreement to change funding levels, and President Barack Obama has stood steadfastly behind the legislation named after him.

Savings figure grows

When Republicans rejected the full BadgerCare expansion last year, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated the decision would cost state taxpayers $119 million over two years.

In its new report, the bureau recalculated the lost savings based on up-to-date enrollment figures and benefit costs. It determined a full expansion of BadgerCare would have cost $355 million more than Walker's plan, but would have drawn $561 in additional federal aid — thus saving $206 million in state taxpayer money.

The savings are higher than initially estimated mainly because more childless adults signed up for BadgerCare than expected, the fiscal bureau wrote. Coverage for those individuals would have been entirely paid by the federal government if the state had fully expanded the program.

If the state decides to accept the federal money available under the Affordable Care Act and fully expand BadgerCare in January 2016, the state would save $261 million to $315 million over 18 months, the report found. The bureau provided a range because the actual savings would depend on how many people were enrolled in BadgerCare.

Ahead in long run

The savings would diminish over time because the federal government would eventually pay 90% of the cost of covering those individuals, rather than 100%. The state would nonetheless come out ahead in the long run, the fiscal bureau found.

"Even in years where the state is responsible for a portion of the cost of childless adults, a full expansion would result in annual (general fund) savings and increased federal costs compared to current law," the report said.

The report was released Tuesday to Sen. Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse), who requested it. She distributed it to news outlets on Friday on the condition that they not report on it until Sunday.

Under Walker's plan, BadgerCare is available to adults making up to $11,670 and couples making up to $15,730. Children and pregnant women are not affected by the plan and are eligible for BadgerCare Plus at much higher income levels.

The full expansion would make BadgerCare available to adults making somewhat higher incomes — $15,521 for an individual and $20,921 for couples.

]]>jeannedauray@gmail.com (Patrick Marley | Journal Sentinel)WisconsinSun, 17 Aug 2014 20:27:34 +0000Wisconsin's cuts to state aid for schools 7th largest in nationhttp://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3362-wisconsins-cuts-to-state-aid-for-schools-7th-largest-in-nation
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3362-wisconsins-cuts-to-state-aid-for-schools-7th-largest-in-nationWisconsin's cuts to state aid for K-12 education since the start of the recession is the 7th largest in the country, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

When measured in dollar amounts rather than percentages, Wisconsin's cuts to state aid since the start of the recession trailed only Alabama, according to the report.

After adjusting for inflation, the report estimates that Wisconsin will spend about $1,000 less per K-12 student in state aid in 2014 than it did in 2008.

The center advocates for restoring school funding, pointing out that spending less on education means that teacher positions were cut and class sizes increased, and that those and other factors have slowed the economic recovery.

State aid, however, is only half the picture of school spending. Most districts rely heavily on local property taxes to fund schools, although what schools could raise in property taxes and state aid per pupil has been reduced under the term of Gov. Scott Walker. Communities may pass a referendum to allow districts to spend more per-pupil.

Walker and others who drove policies to reduce education spending in Wisconsin have argued that the cuts were necessary to get Wisconsin's budget on the right track and to ease property taxes.

The rollback on education spending was coupled with controversial legislation that curtailed collective bargaining and required teachers and other public employees to pay more out-of-pocket toward their health insurance and benefits.

]]>janskay@gmail.com (Erin Richards | JS Online)WisconsinSat, 14 Sep 2013 18:46:05 +0000To Protect Voting Rightshttp://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3356-to-protect-voting-rights
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3356-to-protect-voting-rights“The Fight for Voting Rights, 50 Years Later” (editorial, Aug. 28) correctly states that the voter suppression measures taken in states across the country make clear “the need for comprehensive and lasting protection of voting rights.”

While it is important to reform the Voting Rights Act, the best way to ensure full protection of our voting rights is to include a guaranteed right to vote in our Constitution.

Contrary to popular belief, although the Constitution prohibits discrimination in voting based on race, gender and age, it does not explicitly provide Americans with an affirmative right to vote.

Thus, we have seen efforts to restrict access to the polls through measures like voter ID laws in states across the country, including in my home state, Wisconsin.

Enshrining the right to vote through an amendment, like the one proposed by me and Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, would switch the burden of proof from the voter to the states, which would have to demonstrate a compelling reason for a voting-law change.

This added protection is essential for what should be our most fundamental right, the right to vote.

MARK POCAN Madison, Wis., Aug. 28, 2013

The writer, a Democrat, represents Wisconsin’s Second District in the House.

In separate interviews Wednesday, the two congressmen from Wisconsin both expressed intense skepticism about granting President Barack Obama the authority to use military force against the Syria government.

"I am leaning strongly no," Duffy said when asked how he might vote. "But I am going to a security briefing on Monday when I get in (to Washington, D.C.), so I'll keep an open mind. But from where my constituents are at, I'm strongly no."

Pocan said he hasn't been persuaded to approve a congressional resolution to support an attack on Syria and that calls from his constituents are running overwhelmingly against the use of force.

"I think we all agree that the use of chemical weapons is reprehensible," Pocan said. "Doing nothing is not an option. But I am not convinced that a military strike, especially done solely or nearly solely by us, makes a lot of sense."

Sensenbrenner opposed

Duffy and Pocan show that the usual party-line orthodoxy of a gridlocked Congress may not hold when it comes to figuring out what to do about Syria, whose regime has been accused of using chemical weapons against its people.

Right now, the Obama administration faces a tough lift to get any backing from the Wisconsin congressional delegation. Not a single member contacted by the Journal Sentinel was ready to back a resolution approving force.

And late Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) issued a statement opposing a U.S. strike on Syria.

"President Obama set a red line for action in Syria and is now in denial," Sensenbrenner said. "The actions by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime are reprehensible, but Congress did not set a red line for military action in Syria — President Obama did.

"And his plan for military force will not help the Syrian people or promote the freedom or security of the United States. Therefore, I oppose the President's plan and intend to vote against it when it is considered by the House."

Also Wednesday, Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was among seven members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote against authorizing force against the Syrian government. The resolution passed by a 10-7 margin and goes before the full Senate next week.

"This is a pretty important matter," Johnson said. "I'm highly concerned that the administration's action will be ineffective. And I think ineffective action would be actually worse than no action whatsoever. I really did not get any kind of comfort level that this administration has adequately planned for the repercussions" of a strike against Syria.

"They may be able to provide me with that comfort over the next couple of days before we take the final vote," he added. "But right now I simply did not have the information or the answers to the questions I needed to even allow me to consider voting yes on this resolution."

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the Democrat from Madison, said last week that her judgment on military action would be "based on whether clear, focused and achievable objectives and goals are set."

A bruising battle over Syria is expected to be waged in the House.

Reid Ribble, the Republican congressman who represents northeastern Wisconsin, said he will listen to the administration and "go to classified briefings to see if they can persuade me."

Ribble said based on news reports he has seen he is leaning against use of force.

"What would it take to get me there?" he said. "I mean I would have to see and be convinced that there is a national security interest of the United States to go into a militarily offensive mode here. At this point I'm not seeing it."

U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, the Republican from Fond du Lac, said he is "skeptical" about military action.

"I'm still looking around, hoping maybe there is something that would have a better chance of leading to some positive outcome rather than a choice of bad options," he said. "Military option doesn't automatically lead to better choices."

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the former vice presidential candidate, said in a statement Tuesday that the president "needs to clearly demonstrate that the use of military force would strengthen America's security."

Even House Democrats, Gwen Moore and Ron Kind, still have to be convinced that an attack is in the nation's interest.

Moore said she was "trying to decide between something horrible and something horrible."

"I am really reaching out to every opinion I think is out there so that I can make sure that when I do make the decision I'm doing the best I can with regard to the facts, the history, the intelligence," Moore said.

Kind said the shadow of the Iraq war hangs over Congress.

"People just aren't going to accept on face value when they come before us saying we've got good information or good intelligence that such and such is true," Kind said. "We're going to want to see a higher level of proof."

Kind added that "after two long wars in the region the past decade, there is exhaustion and fatigue has set in."

Kind said he will ask the Obama administration "for a national intelligence assessment of what the day after may look like if we do launch cruise missiles into Syria."

"There are so many trip wires in this region," Kind said. "It's not just launching some missiles in there. It's what might become of that."

The ongoing protests in Wisconsin's Capitol turned violent Monday when police tackled and forcefully restrained a demonstrator while carrying out what has become a daily round of arrests in the rotunda.

A video of the incident shows several Capitol Police officers talking very briefly to protester Damon Terrell before they aggressively take him down. Terrell is a regular protester at the so-called "Solidarity Singalong." Police have engaged in a crackdown on progressive protesters in the building since last month, when they began to enforce a requirement for large groups to receive permits for their gatherings, despite doubts over the rule's constitutionality.

According to the Capital Times, Terrell's arrest was the first to turn violent since the crackdown began.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the video does not show what started the conflict. The progressive blog Occupy River West also has video of Terrell passionately quizzing officers about the day's arrests, shortly before they targeted him.

Earlier this month, police arrested a local alderman and the editor of The Progressive Magazine.

]]>janskay@gmail.com (Ryan Rainy | Huffington Post)WisconsinTue, 27 Aug 2013 00:34:27 +0000Milwaukee says "Hands off Syria!"http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3290-milwaukee-says-qhands-off-syriaq
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3290-milwaukee-says-qhands-off-syriaqMilwaukee, WI - A coalition of anti-war groups held a rally against U.S. intervention in Syria June 21. Over a dozen activists chanted, "Money for jobs, not for war!" at the corner of Humboldt and Locust Street in Riverwest. They received support in the form of honks and peace signs from drivers of passing cars.

The rally was followed by a teach-in on the Syrian conflict, relating it to the recent U.S. intervention in Libya and other U.S. wars and occupations. A homeless veteran joined the teach-in in the park and reminded the group that 21 veterans commit suicide every day.

After the teach-in, the coalition made plans to continue actions against U.S. intervention and to press for the demand, “Money for human needs, not for war.”

]]>janskay@gmail.com (Fight Back! News.org)WisconsinFri, 16 Aug 2013 04:25:43 +0000 “Public Education is A Civil Right March and Rally” to be held in Milwaukee on Sept. 21http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3271--public-education-is-a-civil-right-march-and-rally-to-be-held-in-milwaukee-on-sept-21
http://www.pdacommunity.org/wisconsin/3271--public-education-is-a-civil-right-march-and-rally-to-be-held-in-milwaukee-on-sept-21

If you support Wisconsin’s outstanding public schools, Milwaukee might be the place to be on Saturday, Sept. 21, for the second “Public Education is A Civil Right March and Rally.” Or just maybe, your community might want to plan its own event.

Either way, now is the time to stand up for the public schools and public school children in every corner of Wisconsin.

Organizers of the Milwaukee event are looking for support, but they are also more than willing to lend a hand to event to others around the state. Contacts are former Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) principal Richard Cohn, at 414-659-2713 and MPS board director Dr. Tatiana Joseph, at 414-881-3487. IWF will also do what it can to help you plan a local event. Contact Tom Beebe. tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org

Marchers will assemble at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts, 2300 West Highland Avenue at 11 a.m. and head out across the 16th Street Bridge to Forest Home Avenue School, 1516 West Forest Home Avenue. A rally will being at 1:30 p.m. at Forest Home to proclaim the civil right of every child to a world-class public education.

Students, parents, active and retired educators and school administrators, clergy, civil rights groups and community leaders are organizing the “Public Education is a Civil Right.” The initial event was held in 2011. Sponsors of the march include Parents for Public Schools-Milwaukee; Opportunity to Learn-Wisconsin; Women Committed to an Informed Community; the Wisconsin Alliance of Excellent Schools; teachers’ unions from Milwaukee, Racine, and surrounding communities; Voces de la Frontera; the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future; MICAH; members of the MPS Board of School Directors and other school boards; labor unions; and dozens of other organizations, elected officials and community leaders (a complete list follows).

Again, any organization, group, school board, or union from anywhere in the state is invited to take part in the Milwaukee event ….. or to plan an event of its own. Let Mr. Cohn or Dr. Joseph know and your name will be added to the list of sponsors.

March participants and rally speakers will showcase aspects of quality public education that students have lost or risk losing from massive cuts in public school spending since 2011. Organizers are demanding that officials:

• Fully fund public schools to provide a world-class education for every student in Wisconsin’s public schools.

• Keep locally elected school board members and a strong taxpayer voice in school governance.

• Stop the move to for-profit schools and privatization of public education.

• Hold all schools that receive public tax dollars, including voucher schools, accountable to the law, taxpayers, parents, and children.

• Require quality physical infrastructure for all schools throughout Wisconsin.

The march and rally will include school drum lines, sports teams, walking art shows, award-winning students, and teachers. Again, don’t be shy. Contact the event organizers and get your school or organization involved. Use your imagination but make sure you stand up for quality public education.

The public is invited to participate in this free event. Lunch will be available for purchase from food trucks at the end of the march. Organizers will provide water along the route. Transportation will also be available for those who cannot walk the entire three-mile march route.